Re: USAGE: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG]

>     Oh uh, you gotta be kidding... I must be using English (abusing
English)
> then. I find myself saying "4 goldfish" (my house, the infamous "Spaz-za
> Haus", has a fish-tank in the living room). I also find myself saying
"five
> buck", "2 shirt," etc. and getting odd stares...
>     0_o?  and English is my L1! (well, sorta ... perhaps "Sino-English" is
my
> L1)
I'm fairly sure goldfish is legal, since it has 'fish.' I think the only
time people use golfishes is when singing the "I like goldfishes cause
they're so delicious" song. Same for things like swordfish, probably. I
could be wrong, though.

2 shirt, however...;)
Conversely, I hear a lot of people saying "a scissor"or even "a scissors,"
(but never "a pant" or "a pants.")

-Kendra
http://www.refrigeratedcake.com
http://www.refrigeratedcake.com/other/theatre -- Vade Mecum (comic)
----- Original Message -----
From: "J Y S Czhang" <czhang23@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 10:26 PM
Subject: Re: THEORY/USAGE: irregular English plurals (was: RE: [CONLANG]


> In a message dated 05/21/2002 06.05.39 AM, John Cowan
> (jcowan@REUTERSHEALTH.COM) writes:
>
> >Muke Tever scripsit:
> >
> >> But I think the zero plural can be extended to all fish?
> >
> >I don't think so.  "Herring", yes, "trout", yes; but "I caught five
> >shark today"?  "The aquarium has six guppy"?  I don't think so.
>
>
>     Because it's a classifying word (the exact term escapes me) ?
>
> [BTW shark meat is fairly cheap in San Francisco and the Bay Area
> ::salivating as he types this::]
>
> Hanuman Zhang
>     ~
> "When you lose a language,
> it's like dropping a bomb on a museum." ~ Kenneth Hale
> -----------~§~-----------
> en legoset _ creolego _ =
>     ¡ gwerra sumtotall-morda legotaxo!
>     ¡ banc poli en-noxa legoplex !  creo legoplex !
>
> trans-litteral-slice-ation into English:
>
> in Creo-Lego word-set  <vocabulary>:
>     War word-system sum-total(all)-death !
>         <combat/fight linguistic extinction!>
>     Save multiple in-danger language{s}!  Create language[s]!
>